Continuity/Rupture: Art and Architecture in Central Europe 1918-1939

Tag: Klimt

The Royal Academy of Arts commemorates the centenary of the deaths of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt with an exhibition of their drawings from Vienna’s Albertina Museum, which emphasises their close artistic relationship as the ‘father and son’ of Viennese modernism (Schiele was 28 years Klimt’s junior). Their untimely deaths in 1918, by extension, have long been construed as the symbolic end of Viennese modernism – an interpretation that CRAACE aims to challenge.

Gustav Klimt remains undoubtedly the best known artist from Vienna and, along with Egon Schiele, Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser, largely defined the public image of Vienna as a centre of modern art, design and architecture. Yet his fame has also been a problem, completely overshadowing the many other artists active in the Austrian capital in the early twentieth century. Worse, still, his death in 1918, which coincided with those of Schiele, Wagner and Moser, seemed to symbolise the artistic and political demise of Vienna.